Entrepreneurs Urge NASA to Restart "Citizen in Space" Program. With the success of Earth's first 'space tourist' Dennis Tito, both members of the public and some NASA officials may now finally have renewed hope for civilian space travel that was stifled with the 1986 Challenger tragedy that killed Christa McCauliffe. Leonard David of Space.com reports that Tito, speaking at a special U.S. Senate roundtable, urged Congress to bring back the citizen astronaut program and reserve seats on the space shuttle for private citizens. Even NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, a vocal opponents of Tito's trip, is now talking about an amateur astronaut training program of 1-2 years to prepare civilians for space flight. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin also spoke at the roundtable. "Lets have a little progress," said Aldrin, in reference to the space vision which started 40 years ago with John F. Kennedy's historic 25 May 1961 speech before Congress. Robert Bigelow, President of Bigelow Aerospace, also spoke about his company's goals of building two inflatable structures to be launched to LEO that would function as a "hotel" for tourists. Some advocates suggest that one seat on each shuttle flight be reserved for the winner of a federal lottery, which could cost $50 a ticket and generate money for more space projects.

Russia Dnepr Becoming Commercial Space Workhorse. Largest Soviet ICBM (R 36-M) known to the West as SS 18 or 'Satan' is being used more and more for commercial ventures. To launch a 1 kg payload only costs around US$10,000. With over 150 redundant SS 18s available for conversion, there is potentially a very lucrative market. The Dnepr 1 configuration has an upper stage featuring an exotic propulsion system which 'pulls' the payload container in flight. The design is a legacy of Cold War technology that allows delivery of multiple warheads to individual targets. Dnepr M version will have a traditional upper stage placed behind the payload. Russia and Ukraine will discuss plans to use the Dnepr for launching 7 small sats at a 29 May BoD meeting of the marketing firm Kosmotras in Moscow. These launches will cost between $6 million and $8 million per mission. The board will also discuss future plans in light of the modern space market. On 15 Nov, the Dnepr will orbit UniSat-2 for the University of Rome, 3 CubeSat sats for Stanford University , and the One Stop Satellite Solutions platform. Cluster launches of smaller sats are set for next year. The Dnepr has the potential to put spacecraft into different kinds of orbits including Sun-synchronous and also can serve as the lift vehicle for payloads destined for the Moon. More info on Dnepr here.

New Web Sites to Commemorate John F. Kennedy's 25 May 1961 Speech. Two new sites on the Web, http://history.nasa.gov/moondechtml and http://history.nasa.gov/ridered/cover.htm, have been created to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the historic speech President Kennedy made before a special joint session of Congress in which he announced the ambitious goal of landing an American on the Moon by the end of the decade. Several political factors affected Kennedy's decision, according to the former site. "In general, Kennedy felt great pressure to have the United States 'catch up to and overtake' the Soviet Union in the 'space race'" during the cold war. The site links to the full speech, key documents, and other information about Project Apollo. The latter site contains Dr. Sally K. Ride's August 1987 Report to NASA Administrator, in which Ride stated that "the United States' role as the leader of spacefaring nations came into serious question" after the Challenger accident and that "the U.S. civilian space program is now at a crossroads." This site can be viewed in both html version with fully searchable text and pdf version with full-color graphics.